We investigate the consequences of an unexpected pay change in a consulting firm. After a reduction in the slope of the bonus function, consultants’ output in the affected divisions decreased by around 30%, and attrition increased. Based on the firm’s management information system, we document that consultants’ efforts decreased by the same order of magnitude as output. We present evidence that these effects cannot be interpreted as a spot reaction to the flatter slope of the bonus function. Rather, they support the views of the fair wage hypothesis and of relational contracting. The drop of performance triggered by the pay change, however, was only temporary, because the consultants who enter after the pay change are equally productive as the ones who were in the firm when the pay change occurred.

東京大学大学院経済学研究科 学術交流棟 （小島ホール）１階 第１セミナー室
in Seminar Room 1 on the 1st floor of the Economics Research Annex (Kojima Hall) [Map]

報告

Isis Durrmeyer (Toulouse University)
Winners and losers: the distributional effects of the French feebate on the automobile market

Abstract

I quantify the monetary and environmental gains and losses of an environmental purchase tax/subsidy (feebate) for new cars using a structural model of demand and supply that features a high level of heterogeneity in consumers' preferences. I simulate the market equilibrium without the feebate to quantify its causal effects. The regulation favors middle-income individuals but has redistributive effects when combined with a proportional to income tax. It reduces average carbon emissions at the cost of extra emissions of local air pollutants. The emissions, however, increase the least where they are the highest, implying another type of redistribution.

Organizer

Naoki Wakamori

日時

2019年1月29日（火 Tuesday）10:25-12:10

場所

東京大学大学院経済学研究科 学術交流棟 （小島ホール）１階 第１セミナー室
in Seminar Room 1 on the 1st floor of the Economics Research Annex (Kojima Hall) [Map]

A manufacturer chooses the optimal retail market structure and bilaterally and secretly contracts with each (homogeneous) retailer. In a classic framework without asymmetric information, the manufacturer sells through a single exclusive retailer in order to eliminate the opportunism problem. When retailers are privately informed about their (common) marginal cost, however, the number of competing retailers also affects their information rents and the manufacturer may prefer an oligopolistic market structure. We characterize how the manufacturer’s production technology, the elasticity of final demand, and the size of the market affect the optimal number of retailers. Our results arise both with price and quantity competition, and also when realiers’ costs are imperfectly correlated.

Organizer

Daniel Marszalec

日時

2019年2月12日（火 Tuesday）10:25-12:10

場所

東京大学大学院経済学研究科 学術交流棟 （小島ホール）１階 第１セミナー室
in Seminar Room 1 on the 1st floor of the Economics Research Annex (Kojima Hall) [Map]

報告

Jacob Goeree (University of New South Wales) M Equilibrium A Dual Theory of Beliefs and Choices in Games
[paper]

Abstract

We introduce a set-valued generalization of Nash equilibrium, called M equilibrium, which is based on ordinal monotonicity - players' choice probabilities are ranked the same as the expected payoffs based on their beliefs - and ordinal consistency - players' beliefs yield the same ranking of expected payoffs as their choices. Using results from semi-algebraic geometry, we prove there exist a finite number of M equilibria, each consisting of a finite number of connected components. Generically, M-equilibria can be "color coded" by their ranks in the sense that choices and beliefs belonging to the same M equilibrium have the same color. We show that colorable M equilibria are behaviorally stable, a concept that strengthens strategic stability. Furthermore, set-valued and parameter-free M equilibrium envelopes various parametric models based on fixed-points, including QRE as well as a new and computationally simpler class of models called μ Equilibrium. We report the results of several experiments designed to contrast M equilibrium predictions with those of existing behavioral game-theory models. A first experiment considers five variations of an asymmetric-matching pennies game that leave the predictions of Nash, various versions of QRE, and level-k unaltered. However, observed choice frequencies differ substantially and significantly across games as do players' beliefs. Moreover, beliefs and choices are heterogeneous and beliefs do not match choices in any of the games. These findings contradict existing behavioral game-theory models but accord well with the unique M equilibrium. Follow up experiments employ 3 by 3 games with a unique pure-strategy Nash equilibrium and multiple M equilibria. The belief and choice data exhibit coordination problems that could not be anticipated through the lens of existing behavioral game-theory models.

東京大学大学院経済学研究科 学術交流棟 （小島ホール）１階 第１セミナー室
in Seminar Room 1 on the 1st floor of the Economics Research Annex (Kojima Hall) [Map]

報告

Shiko Maruyama (University of Technology Sydney)
Impacts of Unexpected Birth Outcomes on the Life of Children and Parents: Why Dynamic Complementarities?

Abstract

1) Another Look at Returns to Birthweight (joint with Eskil Heinesen)

We revisit the causal effect of birthweight. Because variation in birthweight in developed countries primarily stems from variation in gestational age rather than intrauterine growth restriction, we depart from the widely-used twin fixed-effects estimator and employ an instrumental variable – the diagnosis of placenta previa, which provides exogenous variation in gestation length. We find protective effects of additional birthweight against infant mortality and health capital loss, such as cerebral palsy, but in contrast to sibling and twin studies, no strong evidence for nonhealth long-run outcomes, such as test scores. We also find that short-run birthweight effects have diminished significantly over the decades.

Children with severe health problems and disabilities require continuing care from parents. Understanding the impacts of unexpected care needs on parents and how parents cope with these shocks is an essential first step in designing policies to support impacted parents and reduce the catastrophic risk in the life of families. There is a large, long-standing literature on the effect of children’s health on parental labor supply, but two major limitations of the literature are identified. First, the vast majority of the literature relies on a simple regression framework without a causal research design. Second, the majority of the literature focuses on the impact on maternal labor supply. Many studies found statistically significant negative effects of children’s health problems and disabilities on the mother’s labor supply, but an important knowledge gap is whether this is a temporary adjustment or a catastrophic life-long event to families even in a contemporary developed country. In this paper, we use population data from Denmark to investigate the impact of severe child care needs on not only parental labor supply but also the family stability, future fertility decision, and parental crime. To obtain more credible causal estimates than previous studies, we focus on birth outcomes, which can be interpreted as the initial health endowment. Because many birth outcomes, such as birthweight and perinatal infection, are often non-random and significantly correlated with the socio-demographic status of parents, we study three plausibly exogenous unexpected birth 2 shocks that tend to result in non-negligible care needs but have little long-term impact on the health of mothers: (1) placenta previa, an obstetric complication that tends to cause premature birth; (2) twin births; and (3) congenital heart disease. We argue that, after controlling for an extensive set of independent variables, these shocks at birth are fairly random. Our results show statistically significant effects of these unexpected birth outcomes: these birth shocks decrease parental labor supply and future fertility and increase the risks of parental separation and committing a crime by the 5th birthday of the child. These effects are particularly strong in the group of parents who are younger, immigrants, and lower educated. This study highlights that even in one of the most developed welfare states, the low SES group faces a substantial life-long risk in having a child.

Your thesis paper is distributed at the seminar venue. Please send an electronic file of it to CIRJE at cirje [at mark] e.u-tokyo.ac.jp, so that CIRJE can duplicate it. You can also bring its hardcopy directly to the CIRJE office on the 6th floor of Economics Research Annex (Kojima Hall).

The submission deadline is (please be punctual):
January 8 (Tuesday)…by 12:00pm., January 7 (Monday)

January 15 (Tuesday)…by 8:00am., January 15 (Tuesday)

January 22 (Tuesday)…by 12:00pm., January 21 (Monday)

Make sure that

Submission behind the deadline is not accepted for any reason.

The file/hardcopy submitted to CIRJE should be the final version.

You need to send your emergency contact information such as cell phone number together with your thesis file, so that CIRJE can immediately reach you in case the file cannot be opened/is broken.

Please put a file of your presentation slides only in your USB memory when you come to the seminar venue since it is sometimes not recognized when other files are inculded in the USB memory.

Those who missed the deadline or those who would like to revise the thesis paper after submission, are required to make 15 hardcopies of it and bring them to the seminar venue on presentation day.

You MUST attend an official oral examination in addition to this master thesis presentation: for details, please see the schedule to be distributed by the Graduate Office when you submit your thesis.

Presenters can use equipment such as a computer and a pointer in a locker in the seminar venue on presentation day: make sure they should be back into the position after use.

日時

January 8, 2019 （火 Tuesday）11:00-15:00

場所

東京大学大学院経済学研究科 学術交流棟 （小島ホール）１階 第１セミナー室
in Seminar Room 1 on the 1st floor of the Economics Research Annex (Kojima Hall) [Map]

東京大学大学院経済学研究科 学術交流棟 （小島ホール）１階 第１セミナー室
in Seminar Room 1 on the 1st floor of the Economics Research Annex (Kojima Hall) [Map]

報告

Hannes Mueller (Barcelona Graduate School of Economics)

The Hard Problem of Prediction for Prevention: Reading Between the Lines (joint with Christopher Rauh)

Abstract

This article provides a new methodology to predict armed conflict by using newspaper text. Through machine learning, vast quantities of newspaper text are reduced to interpretable topics. These topics are then used in panel regressions to predict the onset of conflict. We propose the use of the within- country variation of these topics to predict the timing of conflict. This allows us to avoid the tendency of predicting conflict only in countries where it occurred before. We show that the within-country variation of topics is a good predictor of conflict and becomes particularly useful when risk in previously peaceful countries arises. Two aspects seem to be responsible for these features. Topics provide depth because they consist of changing, long lists of terms which makes them able to capture the changing context of conflict. At the same time topics provide width because they are summaries of the full text, including stabilizing factors.[paper]

東京大学大学院経済学研究科 学術交流棟 （小島ホール）1階 第1セミナー室
in Seminar Room 1 on the 1st floor of the Economics Research Annex (Kojima Hall) [Map]

報告

Carlos Carrilo-Tudela (University of Essex)

The Cost of Job Loss (joint with Kenneth Burdett, and Melvyn Coles) [paper]

Abstract

This paper identifies an equilibrium theory of wage formation and quit turnover in a labour market where risk averse workers accumulate human capital through learning-by- doing while employed, there is skill loss while unemployed and there is on-the-job search. Firms set optimal company wage policies which, in equilibrium, have the property that the wage paid increases with experience and tenure. Using indirect inference, our quantitative analysis shows the model not only reproduces the large and persistent fall in wages following job loss as found in UK data, it also explains why those wage losses differ so markedly across skill groups.

Organizer

Shintaro Yamaguchi

日時

2018年4月10日（火 Tuesday）10:25-12:10

場所

東京大学大学院経済学研究科 学術交流棟 （小島ホール）１階 第１セミナー室
in Seminar Room 1 on the 1st floor of the Economics Research Annex (Kojima Hall) [Map]

We evaluate four auctions for complements in an experimental setting with one global and two local bidders. Using between-subject design, we also vary the degree of correlation between local bidders' values. The experiment covers two standard auctions (Vickrey and fist-price), and two sealed-bid core-selecting designs (Nearest-Bid and Reference Rule). At the auction level, we find the first-price auction revenue-dominant, and most efficient, across for all correlation parameters. At the bidder level, Bayesian-Nash predictions are rejected, and bidders do not account for the effects of correlation. Furthermore, under full correlation, bidders are also not best-responding to their expectations of their rivals' play. Though a small degree of free-riding is observed between local bidders in the first-price auction, we reject level-K type bounded rationality as likely explanation of bidder behaviour. Using numerically calculated best-response functions, we propose risk aversion as the best fit to the data, which can also explain the strong performance of the first-price auction.

東京大学大学院経済学研究科 学術交流棟 （小島ホール）１階 第１セミナー室
in Seminar Room 1 on the 1st floor of the Economics Research Annex (Kojima Hall) [Map]

報告

Christopher Flinn (New York University)

Firm's Choices of Wage-Setting Protocols in the Presence of Minimum Wages [paper]

Abstract

We study the formation of wages in a frictional search market where firms can choose either to bargain with workers or post non-negotiable wage offers. Workers can secure wage increases for themselves by engaging in on-the-job search and either moving to firms that offer higher wages or, when possible, leveraging an outside offer into a higher wage at the current firm. We characterize the optimal wage posting strategy of non-negotiating firms and how this decision is influenced by the presence of renegotiating firms. We quantitatively examine the model's unique implications for efficiency, wage dispersion, and worker welfare by estimating it using data on the wages and employment spells of low-skill workers in the United States. In the estimated steady state of the model, we find that more than 10% of job acceptance decisions made while on the job are socially sub-optimal. We also find that, relative to a benchmark case without renegotiation, the presence of even a small number of these firms increases the wage dispersion attributable to search frictions, deflates wages, and reduces worker welfare. Moving to a general equilibrium setting, we use the estimated model to study the impact of a minimum wage increase on firm bargaining strategies and worker outcomes. Our key nding is that binding minimum wages lead to an increase in the equilibrium fraction of renegotiating firms which, relative to a counterfactual in which this fraction is fixed, significantly dampens the reduction in wage dispersion and gains in worker

Organizer

Hidehiko Ichimura

日時

2018年4月17日（火 Tuesday）10:25-12:10

場所

東京大学大学院経済学研究科 学術交流棟 （小島ホール）１階 第１セミナー室
in Seminar Room 1 on the 1st floor of the Economics Research Annex (Kojima Hall) [Map]

報告

Eunhee Kim (City University of Hong Kong)

TBA

Abstract

Organizer

Keisuke Kawata

日時

2018年4月24日（火 Tuesday）10:25-12:10

場所

東京大学大学院経済学研究科 学術交流棟 （小島ホール）１階 第１セミナー室
in Seminar Room 1 on the 1st floor of the Economics Research Annex (Kojima Hall) [Map]

報告

室岡 健志 (Takeshi Murooka) (Osaka University)

Market Competition and Informal Incentives

Abstract

We develop a model where firms compete on a product market and employ workers whose effort increases revenue, but where no formal contracts can be used to provide incentives for the workers. Firms and workers are matched in a labor market and wages are determined by a bargaining process. Replacing a worker is costly, and the replacement costs incurred by firms are lower in a more competitive labor market (i.e., how many workers are available in the labor market). We show that lowering the replacement costs may decrease workers' wages, industry-wide production efficiency, and consumer surplus. It also makes collusion between firms easier to sustain because the incentive to deviate from a collusive agreement are lower. By contrast, helping potential workers in the labor market typically increases workers' wages, production efficiency, and consumer surplus --- highlighting that there is a sharp asymmetry of reducing costs in the labor market between firms and workers. We also discuss other implications for labor market policies.

東京大学大学院経済学研究科 学術交流棟 （小島ホール）１階 第１セミナー室
in Seminar Room 1 on the 1st floor of the Economics Research Annex (Kojima Hall) [Map]

報告

Jesper Bagger (Royal Holloway, University of London)

Income Taxation and Equilibrium Labor Allocation

Abstract

We study the role of labor income taxation on job search and frictional labor market matching in the presence of worker and firm heterogeneity. Our analysis is strictly positive and is based on a rich equilibrium on-the-job search model of the labor market with endogenous search effort. We estimate the structural model on Danish administrative data and evaluate how three income tax reforms in Denmark in the 1990s and 2000s affected equilibrium labor allocation, wages, and output. The reforms resulted in labor income increasing by 1.8 percent, while unemployment decreased by 4.8 percent. The model allows us to identify Pareto optimal tax reforms that increases government revenue while improving everyone's welfare. In the case of risk-averse workers, Pareto optimal tax system calls for a slightly higher degree of progressivity and produces a modest increase in government revenue by around 0.1 percent, while increasing lifetime utility of the different worker types by between 0.01 percent and 0.1 percent.

東京大学大学院経済学研究科 学術交流棟 （小島ホール）１階 第１セミナー室
in Seminar Room 1 on the 1st floor of the Economics Research Annex (Kojima Hall) [Map]

報告

Christopher Taber （University of Wisconsin-Madison)

Estimation of a Life-Cycle Model with Human Capital, Labor Supply and Retirement (joint with Xiaodong Fan, and Ananth Seshadri) [paper]

Abstract

We develop and estimate a life-cycle model in which individuals make decisions about consumption, human capital investment, and labor supply. Retirement arises endogenously as part of the labor supply decision. The model allows for both an endogenous wage process through human capital investment (which is typically assumed exogenous in the retirement literature) and an endogenous retirement decision (which is typically assumed exogenous in the human capital literature). We estimate the model using Indirect Inference to match the life-cycle profiles of wages and hours from the SIPP data. The model replicates the main features of the data—in particular the large increase in wages and small increase in labor supply at the beginning of the life-cycle as well as the small decrease in wages but large decrease in labor supply at the end of the life cycle. We also estimate versions of the model in which human capital is completely exogenous and in which human capital is exogenous conditional on work (learning-by-doing). The endogenous human capital model fits the data the best; the learning-by-doing model is able to fit the overall life-cycle pattern; the exogenous model does not. We find that endogenous labor supply is essential for understanding life-cycle human capital investment and life-cycle human capital investment is essential for understanding life-cycle labor supply.

東京大学大学院経済学研究科 学術交流棟 （小島ホール）１階 第１セミナー室
in Seminar Room 1 on the 1st floor of the Economics Research Annex (Kojima Hall) [Map]

報告

Xing Xia (Yale-NUS College)

Selective mortality and the long-term effects of early-life exposure to natural disasters [paper]

Abstract

We analyze the effects of early-life shocks with varying degrees of severity on mortality and human capital outcomes in the Philippines. We exploit variations in typhoon exposure and the introduction of a short-term post-disaster relief policy. Before the policy, mortality from in-utero exposure to severe typhoons was 10 percent, but survivors exhibited similar levels of human capital as the unaffected. The policy change mitigated the mortality effect of severe typhoons, but survivors have lower human capital in the long-term. The observed changes in adverse long-term effects are due to the policy’s effectiveness in increasing survival probability.

東京大学大学院経済学研究科 学術交流棟 （小島ホール）１階 第１セミナー室
in Seminar Room 1 on the 1st floor of the Economics Research Annex (Kojima Hall) [Map]

報告

小西祥文 (Yoshifumi Konishi) (University of Tsukuba)

Distorted Technical Change? Evidence from New Vehicle Launches in the Japanese Automobile Industry [paper]

Abstract

We empirically examine the distortionary impact of an attribute-based regulation on technical change, in the context of new product launches in the Japanese automobile industry. Under the Japanese regulation, fuel economy standards are a step function of curb weight, and their stringency levels vary substantially over time across weight bins of different sizes. We explicitly exploit these quasi-experimental variations in the difference-in-difference-in-differences framework to control for confounders that may be correlated with regulatory assignment. We find strong evidence in support of our theoretical prediction: An attribute-based regulation distorts technical change when it creates trade-offs between the targeted and secondary attributes that differ from technically feasible trade-offs. We also demonstrate that bunching behavior reported elsewhere was evident only in reporting to the government, but not in product offerings in the market.

Ride-hailing drivers pay a proportion of their fares to the ride-hailing platform operator, a commission-based compensation model used by many internet-mediated service providers. To Uber drivers, this commission is known as the Uber fee. By contrast, traditional taxi drivers in most US cities make a ?xed payment independent of their earnings, usually a weekly or daily medallion lease, but keep every fare dollar net of expenses. We assess these compensation models from a driver’s point of view using an experiment that o?ered random samples of Boston Uber drivers opportunities to lease a virtual taxi medallion that eliminates the Uber fee. Some drivers were o?ered a negative fee. Drivers’ labor supply response to our o?ers reveals a large intertemporal substitution elasticity, on the order of 1.2. At the same time, our virtual lease program was under-subscribed: many drivers who would have bene?tted from buying an inexpensive lease chose to opt out. We use these results to compute the average compensation required to make drivers indi?erent between ride-hailing and a traditional taxi compensation contract. The results suggest that ride-hailing drivers gain considerably from the opportunity to drive without leasing.

This paper studies the effects of international reconstruction aid on long-term economic development. It exploits plausibly exogenous differences between Italian provinces in the amount of grants disbursed through the Marshall Plan for the reconstruction of public infrastructure. Provinces that received more reconstruction grants experienced a larger increase in the number of industrial firms and workers. Individuals and firms in these areas also started developing more patents. The same provinces experienced a faster mechanization of the agricultural sector. Motorized machines, such as tractors, replaced workers and significantly boosted agricultural production. Finally, we show how reconstruction grants induced economic growth by allowing Italian provinces to modernize their transportation and communication networks damaged during WWII.

Organizer

Tetsuji Okazaki

日時

2018年5月29日（火 Tuesday）10:25-12:10

場所

東京大学大学院経済学研究科 学術交流棟 （小島ホール）１階 第１セミナー室
in Seminar Room 1 on the 1st floor of the Economics Research Annex (Kojima Hall) [Map]

報告

John Hillas (University of Auckland)

"Backward Induction in games without perfect recall" (joint with Dmitriy Kvasov) [paper]

Abstract

The equilibrium concepts that we now think of as various forms of backwards induction, namely subgame perfect equilibrium (Selten, 1965), perfect equilibrium (Selten, 1975), sequential equilibrium (Kreps and Wilson, 1982), and quasi-perfect equilibrium (van Damme, 1984), are explicitly restricted to games with perfect recall. In spite of this the concepts are well defined even in games without perfect recall. There is now a small literature examining the behaviour of these concepts in games without perfect recall. We argue that in games without perfect recall the original definitions are inappropriate. Our reading of the original papers is that the authors were aware that their definitions did not require the assumption of perfect recall but they were also aware that without the assumption of perfect recall the definitions they gave were not the "correct" ones. We give definitions of two of these concepts, sequential equilibrium and quasi-perfect equilibrium, that identify the same equilibria in games with perfect recall and behave well in games without perfect recall.

Organizer

Michihiro Kandori

日時

2018年6月5日（火 Tuesday）10:25-12:10

場所

東京大学大学院経済学研究科 学術交流棟 （小島ホール）１階 第１セミナー室
in Seminar Room 1 on the 1st floor of the Economics Research Annex (Kojima Hall) [Map]

This paper examines the impact of inward foreign direct investment (FDI) liberalization on domestic firm’s monopsonic power over wage. We estimate firm-level “wage markdown,” the gap between the wage and the marginal cost of labor (MCL), from firm-level production data of China. Our estimation framework is general about reasons for firm’s monopsony power, assumes no functional form about labor supply curves to firms, and simultaneously estimate firm’s monopoly power in the output market. During 1998-2007, 82% of manufacturing firms exercised monopsony power and workers at a median firm receives only 35% of MCL.We estimate the causal effect of FDI liberalization on wage markdowns, using variations in China’s regulation on FDI inflow upon its accession to the WTO in 2001. In contrast to the conventional wisdom, markdowns are narrower at large employers and FDI liberalization widens wage markdown for an average worker by around 8.7%. We show that these apparently counter-intuitive findings are consistent with monopsony theory based on search friction.

Organizer

Daiji Kawaguchi

日時

2018年6月12日（火 Tuesday）11:00-12:30 ※Schedule Changed

場所

東京大学大学院経済学研究科 学術交流棟 （小島ホール）１階 第１セミナー室
in Seminar Room 1 on the 1st floor of the Economics Research Annex (Kojima Hall) [Map]

Importance: Patients perceive the medical school from which a physician graduated as a signal of care quality. However, the relationship between the ranking of the medical school a physician attended and subsequent patient outcomes and spending is largely unknown. Objective: To investigate whether the ranking of the medical school a physician attended is associated with patient outcomes and healthcare spending. Design, setting, and participants: We analyzed a 20% random sample of Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries aged ≥65 years, who were emergently hospitalized with a medical condition and treated by general internists from January 1, 2011 to December 31, 2015. We examined the association between the ranking of the medical school a physician attended (determined by U.S. News & World Report rankings) and outcomes and spending of patients treated by these physicians, adjusted for patient and physician characteristics and hospital fixed effects (comparing physicians within the same hospital). As a sensitivity analysis, we focused on patients treated by hospitalists (because patients are plausibly quasi-randomly assigned to hospitalists based on their specific work schedules). Main outcomes and measures: 30-day mortality and readmission rates and Medicare Part B spending per hospitalization. Results: A total of 949,774 patients treated by 29,147 physicians were analyzed. When using primary care rankings, physicians who graduated from higher-ranked schools exhibited lower 30-day readmission rates (adjusted 30-day readmission rate, 15.7% for top-10 schools vs. 16.1% for schools ranked ≥50; adjusted risk difference, +0.4%; 95%CI, +0.1% to +0.8%; p-for-trend=0.005) and slightly lower spending (adjusted Part B spending, $1029 vs. $1066; adjusted difference, +$36; 95%CI, +$20 to +$52; p-for-trend<0.001) compared with graduates of lower-ranked schools but no difference in patient mortality. When using research rankings, physicians graduating from higher-ranked schools had slightly lower healthcare spending but no differences in mortality or readmissions. A sensitivity analysis restricted to patients treated by hospitalists yielded similar findings. Conclusion and relevance: Physicians who graduated from highly-ranked primary care medical schools exhibited slightly lower patient readmission rates and spending compared with physicians who attended lower ranked schools but had no difference in patient 30-day mortality. Physicians who graduated from highly-ranked research medical schools had slightly lower spending but no difference in patient mortality or readmission rates.

東京大学大学院経済学研究科 学術交流棟 （小島ホール）１階 第１セミナー室
in Seminar Room 1 on the 1st floor of the Economics Research Annex (Kojima Hall) [Map]

報告

Dean Hyslop (Motu Economic and Public Policy Research)

Earnings dynamics and measurement error in matched survey and administrative data (joint with Wilbur Townsendy) [paper]*paper updated on June 18

Abstract

This paper analyzes earnings dynamics and measurement error using a matched longitudinal sample of individuals’ survey and administrative earnings. We reject that survey reports are measured with classical error and the administrative earnings are error free. The reported differences are negatively correlated with average administrative earnings, and with annual deviations, and characterized by both persistent and transitory factors. We formulate models for individuals’ true earnings and measurement errors in each report. Assuming no measurement error in the administrative reports, we estimate mean-reverting errors in the survey report, but this finding is not robust to relaxing this assumption. The results imply measurement errors dominate the observed changes in earnings.

Organizer

Daiji Kawaguchi

日時

2018年6月19日（火 Tuesday）10:25-12:10

場所

東京大学大学院経済学研究科 学術交流棟 （小島ホール）１階 第１セミナー室
in Seminar Room 1 on the 1st floor of the Economics Research Annex (Kojima Hall) [Map]

This paper presents a new theory of price dispersion based on firm size and dynamic reasoning. We build a model of oligopolistic price competition among n firms with sequential consumer search, in which each firm consists of a mass of sellers. Since search is random, consumers are more likely to meet sellers from a larger firm. This reduces the consumer's outside option of rejecting a trade with a seller from a larger firm, generating a greater market power for a larger firm. We show that price dispersion disappears as search frictions disappear. Interestingly, there is a non-monotonic relationship between search frictions and price dispersion.

Centralized matching markets are designed assuming that participants make well- informed choices upfront. However, this paper uses data from NYC’s school choice system to show that families’ choices change after the initial match as they learn about schools. I develop an empirical model of evolving demand for schools under learning, endowment effects in response to prior assignments, and switching costs. These model components are identified by using admissions lotteries and other institutional features. The estimates suggest that there are even more changes in underlying demand than in observed choices, undermining the welfare performance of the initial match. To al- leviate the welfare cost of demand changes, I theoretically and empirically investigate dynamic mechanisms that best accommodate choice changes. These mechanisms im- prove on the existing discretionary reapplication process. In addition, the gains from the mechanisms drastically change depending on the extent of demand-side inertia caused by switching costs. Thus, the gains from a centralized market depend not only on its design but also on demand-side frictions (such as demand changes and inertia).

東京大学大学院経済学研究科 学術交流棟 （小島ホール）１階 第１セミナー室
in Seminar Room 1 on the 1st floor of the Economics Research Annex (Kojima Hall) [Map]

報告

Yangguang (Sunny) Huang (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology)

A Model of Sales on Online Platforms

Abstract

Online platforms, in many stylized models, intensify seller-side competition as they induce more entry, reduce search costs, and alleviate asymmetric information. However, platforms can also entail anti-competitive impact to the market because they can deeply influence consumers' consideration sets by search tools. For instance, most search algorithms and recommender systems are based on popularity, so sellers with established brands are further reinforced by appearing on the top of search results. We construct a model that provides an anatomy of how platforms influence consumers' consideration sets, which further determine the market structure and welfare. We study the data from food-delivery platforms and provide empirical evidence of the model.

Organizer

Naoki Wakamori

日時

2018年7月3日（火 Tuesday）10:25-12:10

場所

東京大学大学院経済学研究科 学術交流棟 （小島ホール）１階 第１セミナー室
in Seminar Room 1 on the 1st floor of the Economics Research Annex (Kojima Hall) [Map]

報告

原田 勝孝 (Masataka Harada) (Fukuoka University)

Measuring Destruction from Above Long-Term Effects of the WWII Air Raid Damages on Contemporary Sociopolitical Activities in Japan (joint with Gaku Ito)

Abstract

Do mass destructions due to wars change local communities thereafter? If they do, in which aspects, how much, and what are the mechanisms? Although several studies have examined the ramifications of wars, the results are mixed, and most of them focus on sparsely populated rural areas in developing countries. This study presents the novel causal evidence for these questions with a natural experimental setting. Specifically, we take advantage of the fact that the Great Tokyo Air Raids in 1945 left random damages to the communities due to the differences in the landscape and the microclimates on the bombing days. We have developed the new dataset by applying remote-sensing technique to the aerial photography of 1947-1948 Tokyo, which enables us to measure the level of destruction at Cho-chomoku (similar to the census block in the U.S.) level, a significantly smaller unit of analysis than past studies. The preliminary results show that the air raids increased the unemployment rates, and this effect remains after removing the mediation effect of move-in population.

Organizer

Keisuke Kawata

日時

2018年7月10日（火 Tuesday）16:30-18:30※時間に注意

場所

東京大学大学院経済学研究科 学術交流棟 （小島ホール）１階 第１セミナー室
in Seminar Room 1 on the 1st floor of the Economics Research Annex (Kojima Hall) [Map]

Misinterpreting Others and the Fragility of Social Learning (joint with Ryota Iijima and Yuhta Ishii)

Abstract

"Dispersed Behavior and Perceptions in Assortative Societies"

Motivated by the fact that people’s perceptions of their societies are routinely incorrect, we study the possibility and implications of misperception in social interactions. We focus on coordination games with assortative interactions, where agents with higher types (e.g., wealth, political attitudes) are more likely than lower types to interact with other high types. Assor- tativity creates scope for misperception, because what agents observe in their local interactions need not be representative of society as a whole. To model this, we define a tractable solution concept, “local perception equilibrium” (LPE), that describes possible behavior and perceptions when agents’ beliefs are derived only from their local interactions. We show that there is a unique form of misperception that can persist in any environment: This is assortativity neglect , where all agents believe the people they interact with to be a representative sample of society as a whole. Relative to the case with correct perceptions, assortativity neglect generates two mutually reinforcing departures: A “false consensus effect,” whereby agents’ perceptions of average characteristics in the population are increasing in their own type; and more “dispersed” behavior in society, which adversely affects welfare due to increased miscoordination. Finally, we propose a comparative notion of when one society is more assortative than another and show that more assortative societies are characterized precisely by greater action dispersion and a more severe false consensus effect, and as a result, greater assortativity has an ambiguous effect on welfare.

Organizer

Daisuke Oyama

日時

2018年7月17日（火 Tuesday）16:30-18:30※時間・会場に注意

場所

東京大学大学院経済学研究科 学術交流棟 （小島ホール）１階 第２セミナー室
in Seminar Room 2 on the 1st floor of the Economics Research Annex (Kojima Hall) [Map]

We construct a dynamic model of election campaigns. In the model, opportunities for candidates to refine/clarify their policy positions are limited and arrive stochastically along the course of the campaign until the predetermined election date. We show that this simple friction leads to rich and subtle campaign dynamics. We first demonstrate these effects in a series of canonical static models of elections that we extend to dynamic settings, including models with valence, a multi-dimensional policy space, policy motivated candidates, campaign spending, and incomplete information. We then present general principles that underlie the results from those examples. In particular, we establish that candidates spend a long time using ambiguous language during the election campaign in equilibrium.

Organizer

Michihiro Kandori

※Master's Thesis Presentations ※

We can print your thesis paper to be distributed at the seminar venue. Please send an electronic file of it to CIRJE at cirje [at mark] e.u-tokyo.ac.jp, so that CIRJE can duplicate it. You can also bring its hardcopy directly to the CIRJE office on the 6th floor of Economics Research Annex (Kojima Hall).

The submission deadline is (please be punctual):

January 10 (Tuesday)…by 3:00pm, July 9 (Monday)

January 17 (Tuesday)…by8:45am, July 17 (Tuesday)

Make sure that

Submission behind the deadline is not accepted for any reason.

The file/hardcopy submitted to CIRJE should be the final version.

You need to send your emergency contact information such as cell phone number along with your thesis file, so that CIRJE can reach you in case the file cannot be opened/is broken.

Please put a file of your presentation slides only in your USB memory when you come to the seminar venue since it is sometimes not recognized when other files are inculded in the USB memory.

Those who missed the deadline or those who would like to revise the thesis paper after the submission, are required to make 15 hardcopies of it and bring them to the seminar venue on the presentation day.

You MUST attend an official oral examination in addition to this master thesis presentation: for details, please see the schedule to be distributed by the Graduate Office when you submit your thesis.

Presenters can use equipment such as a computer and a pointer in a locker in the seminar venue on the presentation day: make sure they should be back into place after use.

日時

2018年7月10日（火 Tuesday）10:00-12:30

場所

東京大学大学院経済学研究科 学術交流棟 （小島ホール）１階 第１セミナー室
in Seminar Room 1 on the 1st floor of the Economics Research Annex (Kojima Hall) [Map]

報告

10:00-10:30 Pan Yen Long（Readers： 川口、山口、（川田））

Long-Term Effect of Graduating in Recession on Income and Consumption

10:30-11:00 QIAN Xunan（Readers： 川口、山口、（川田））

To work or to Have a Second Child-The Effect of Selective Two-Child Policy on Labor Market in China

11:00-11:30 LIU Zhang（Readers： 中林、田中、（川田））

Monetary Policy and House Price- If Monetary Policy should target at house price in China

11:30-12:00 ZHAO Rui（Readers： 岡崎、小島、（中村））

Competition in the railway industry in Manchuria after the World War I

12：00-12：30 LIU Silin（Readers： 岡崎、谷本、（川口））

The effect of export on regional usage: evidence from the bilateral trade between China and Japan

日時

2018年7月17日（火 Tuesday）10:30-12:30

場所

東京大学大学院経済学研究科 学術交流棟 （小島ホール）１階 第１セミナー室
in Seminar Room 1 on the 1st floor of the Economics Research Annex (Kojima Hall) [Map]

報告

10:30-11:00 LIN Jung-Hsuan（Readers： Griffen、川口、（若森））

Relative income distribution and the division of domestic work within Taiwanese household

11:00-11:30 LI Yishin（Readers： 若森、Griffen、（Marszalec））

Productivity and Foreign Direct Investment-A Study of Chinese Firms

11:30-12:00 SHI Zejin（Readers： 市村、山口、（Griffen））

Do single mothers have difficulty to remarry?

12:00-12:30 LIU Zaiwei （Readers： 市村、飯塚、（Griffen））

Physician Peer Effects in Patient-Sharing Networks

日時

2018年7月24日（火 Tuesday）10:25-12:10

場所

東京大学大学院経済学研究科 学術交流棟 （小島ホール）１階 第１セミナー室
in Seminar Room 1 on the 1st floor of the Economics Research Annex (Kojima Hall) [Map]

We study truthful mechanisms that achieve a large size of matching (expected number of agents matched to some objects) in an environment where the planner can decide which and how many objects to provide subject to linear upper bound constraints. Naïve extensions of the classical serial mechanisms may generate an arbitrarily small matching in such environments. Assuming the market to be large (in that the variety of objects is fixed but the capacity to be large), we establish several mechanisms that have a constant guarantee for the size achieved. As a main result, we propose the adaptive parallel polymatroid serial mechanism, which (i) is not too computationally difficult to implement, (ii) achieves 1-1/e ≈ 63.2% of the maximum feasible size even in the worst case, and (iii) keeps agents' choice sets as large as possible.

東京大学大学院経済学研究科 学術交流棟 （小島ホール）１階 第１セミナー室
in Seminar Room 1 on the 1st floor of the Economics Research Annex (Kojima Hall) [Map]

報告

Kai Liu (University of Cambridge)

Estimating the Dynamic Effects of a Job Training Program with Multiple Alternatives

Abstract

This paper aims at estimating the causal effect of a job training program for disadvantaged youths on their subsequent earnings. Participants are randomized in treatment and control groups, but are allowed to choose when to leave the program and to participate (alternative) training when not enrolled in the program. We consider a multi-stage decision setting, where individuals sequentially select which training to obtain at every stage. The standard Wald estimator using initial random assignment as instrument identifies a weighted average of the effects of the treatment for the subgroups of individuals selecting different duration and different trainings outside the program. We develop a selection model which allows to separately estimate the effect of the treatment for the different subgroups. We use the estimated model to investigate dynamic complementarity/substitutability between different training programs. We show that considering the dynamic interaction between different trainings in this setting is relevant to study the heterogeneous effect of the program and to conduct a complete cost-benefit analysis.

Auctions are often used to sell assets whose future cash flows require the winner to make post-auction investments. When a winner’s payment is contingent on the asset’s cash flows, auction design can influence both bidding and incentives to exert effort after the auction. This paper proposes a model of contingent payment auctions that explicitly links auction design to post-auction economic activity, in the context of Permian Basin oil auctions. The estimated model is used to demonstrate that auction design can materially impact both revenue and post-auction drilling activity, as well as mitigate or amplify the effects of oil price shocks.

Organizer

Naoki Wakamori

日時

2018年10月2日（火 Tuesday）10:25-12:10

場所

東京大学大学院経済学研究科 学術交流棟 （小島ホール）１階 第１セミナー室
in Seminar Room 1 on the 1st floor of the Economics Research Annex (Kojima Hall) [Map]

Previous experimental work demonstrates the power of classical theories of economic dynamics to accurately predict major features of price dynamics in multiple market systems. Building on this literature, this study implements experimental markets designed after extreme environments identified by Scarf (1960) and Hirota (1981). These environments provide insight into two important economic questions: (a) do markets necessarily converge to a unique interior equilibrium? and (b) which model, among a set of classical specifications, most accurately characterizes observed price dynamics? Our first result demonstrates that the dynamic property of "expanding price orbits" exists, with prices spiraling outwardly around the equilibrium prices in the directions predicted by the theory of disequilibrium price dynamics. Our second result establishes properties of partial equilibrium theory in an unstable general equilibrium environment. Price changes in a market reflect the magnitude of excess demand of that market, with excess demand in other markets making second-order contributions to predicted price changes. These results support the fundamental principle, advanced by Walras and others, that the direction of price change in a given market depends only on the sign of its own excess demand. This excess demand may depend on many prices, but unless disequilibrium is severe the sign of the price change does not depend on the magnitude of excess demand in other markets.

Organizer

Michihiro Kandori

日時

2018年10月9日（火 Tuesday）10:25-12:10

場所

東京大学大学院経済学研究科 学術交流棟 （小島ホール）１階 第１セミナー室
in Seminar Room 1 on the 1st floor of the Economics Research Annex (Kojima Hall) [Map]

We study how a preferential trade agreement (PTA) affects international sourcing decisions, aggregate productivity and welfare under incomplete contracting and endogenous matching. Contract incompleteness implies underinvestment. That inefficiency is mitigated by a PTA, because the agreement allows the parties in a relationship to internalize a larger return from the investment. This raises aggregate productivity. On the other hand, the agreement yields sourcing diversion. More efficient suppliers tilt the tradeoff toward the (potentially) beneÖcial relationship-strengthening effect; a high external tariff tips it toward harmful sourcing diversion. A PTA also affects the structure of matches in the economy. As tariff preferences attract too many matches to the bloc, the average productivity of the industry tends to fall. When the agreement incorporates "deep integration" provisions, it boosts trade áows, but not necessarily welfare. Rather, "deep integration" improves upon "shallow integration" if and only if the original investment inefficiencies are serious enough. On the whole, we offer a new framework to study the beneÖts and costs from preferential liberalization in the context of global sourcing.

Organizer

Taiji Furusawa

日時

2018年10月16日（火 Tuesday）10:25-12:10

場所

東京大学大学院経済学研究科 学術交流棟 （小島ホール）１階 第１セミナー室
in Seminar Room 1 on the 1st floor of the Economics Research Annex (Kojima Hall) [Map]

報告

吉田雄一郎 (Yuichiro Yoshida) (Hiroshima University)
The Impact of Market Competition on High-Speed Rail Service Quality: Does Monopoly Slow Down a Bullet Train?

Abstract

When Japan National Railways (JNR) was privatized into six regionally monopolistic railway corporations in 1987, there emerged exceptional areas where the industrial structure of railway transportation happened to be duopolistic due to an operational reason. Leveraging on this natural experimental setting arising from the privatization of JNR, we estimate the impact of market competition on the service quality i.e., speed and scheduling of a high-speed rail (HSR) run by an oligopolistic service provider. The paper shows that the change in time costs is significantly lower in those segments where HSR is competing with a conventional rail, and that such effect is larger for the shorter-distance markets where the competition is presumably more intensive.

Organizer

Keisuke Kawata

日時

2018年10月23日（火 Tuesday）10:25-12:10

場所

東京大学大学院経済学研究科 学術交流棟 （小島ホール）１階 第１セミナー室
in Seminar Room 1 on the 1st floor of the Economics Research Annex (Kojima Hall) [Map]

Globalization gives us a huge pool of potential transaction partners, but past behaviors of new partners are not perfectly known, making it difficult to punish defectors. The literature advocates trust-building/gradual cooperation or co-existence of cooperators and defectors. Recent experiments reveal that subjects are more tolerant than the advocated equilibria. We construct the most behaviorally diverse class of equilibria which are consistent with experimental observations. Tolerance is an equilibrium phenomenon, and behavioral diversity can motivate tolerance and cooperation. Behavioral diversity is not necessarily due to player heterogeneity, nor less efficient than trust-building equilibria.

Organizer

Daniel Marszalec

日時

2018年10月30日（火 Tuesday）10:25-12:10

場所

東京大学大学院経済学研究科 学術交流棟 （小島ホール）１階 第１セミナー室
in Seminar Room 1 on the 1st floor of the Economics Research Annex (Kojima Hall) [Map]

This paper investigates the welfare effects of a free trade agreement (FTA) when a multinational enterprise (MNE) manipulates its transfer price of intra-firm trade in an international oligopoly model. Before the formation of FTA, the MNE uses the transfer price to avoid a high corporate tax and/or to shift profits from the rival firm in the final-good market. After the FTA formation, rules of origin (ROO) of the FTA can induce the MNE to manipulate the transfer price for complying with ROO and to be eligible for tariff elimination. We show that an FTA may decrease the profits of all firms, even though these firms take advantage of tariff elimination of the FTA. An FTA with ROO may work as an effective policy to prevent an anti-competitive effect of transfer pricing and benefit consumers more than an FTA formation without transfer price manipulation does. However, if the pre-FTA transfer price is low, an FTA formation may lead to an increase in the final-good price and hurt the consumers in the liberalizing country.

東京大学大学院経済学研究科 学術交流棟 （小島ホール）１階 第１セミナー室
in Seminar Room 1 on the 1st floor of the Economics Research Annex (Kojima Hall) [Map]

報告

Chia-Hui Chen (Kyoto University)
An Entry Game with Learning and Market Competition [paper]

Abstract

This paper provides a dynamic game of market entry to illustrate the emergence of a market pioneer and its welfare implications. Our model features both market competition and private learning about the market condition, which give rise to the first-mover and second-mover advantages in a unified framework. We characterize symmetric Markov perfect equilibria and identify a necessary and sufficient condition for the first-mover advantage to dominate, which elucidates when and under what conditions a firm becomes a pioneer, an early follower or a late entrant. We also derive equilibrium payoff bounds to show that pioneering entry is generally payoff-enhancing, even though it is driven by preemption motives, and discuss efficiency properties of entry dynamics.

東京大学大学院経済学研究科 学術交流棟 （小島ホール）１階 第１セミナー室
in Seminar Room 1 on the 1st floor of the Economics Research Annex (Kojima Hall) [Map]

報告

Yuta Toyama (Waseda University)

"Dynamic Incentives and Equilibrium in Cap-and-Trade Regulation"

Abstract

Regulatory design of cap-and-trade program involves dynamic considerations: A regulator set up a schedule of permit allocation, which often decreases over time, and decides whether it allows for saving/borrowing of emissions permits across periods. Given such dynamic policy design, regulated firms make abatement and compliance decisions in a forward-looking way. This paper studies dynamic incentives of those firms and equilibrium outcomes under cap-and-trade regulation. I first develop a dynamic equilibrium model of heterogeneous firms that characterizes abatement investment and permit trading subject to transactions costs. I estimate the model using the data from the US Acid Rain Program and evaluate the performance of cap-and-trade through counterfactual simulations. I found that, given a fixed level of aggregate emissions, the costs of reducing emissions under cap-and-trade are 16.6% lower than a uniform standard. Although environmental damages from SO2 emissions increase due to the change in the geographic distribution of emissions, the net-benefit of the cap-and-trade is positive. I also examine the potential gains from trade in the absence of transaction costs. I find more dispersed patterns of investment and less banking of permits, both of which result in cost savings.

Organizer

Shitaro Yamaguchi

日時

2018年11月13日（火 Tuesday）10:25-12:10

場所

東京大学大学院経済学研究科 学術交流棟 （小島ホール）１階 第１セミナー室
in Seminar Room 1 on the 1st floor of the Economics Research Annex (Kojima Hall) [Map]

報告

James E. Anderson (Boston College and Hitotsubashi University)
Short Run Gravity (joint with Yoto V. Yotov) [paper]

Abstract

The short run gravity model is based on fixed inefficient bilateral capacities (market- ing capital) combined with mobile labor allocation. Buyers incidence elasticity of trade cost captures the effect. Efficient allocation gives long run gravity, the outer envelope. Rising efficiency of bilateral capacity allocation is estimated to raise world manufac- turing trade 162% in the globalization era, 1988-2006. Counter-factual calculation of long run efficient capacity allocation reveals real income gains to all countries from 25% to 47%. Results give solutions to the ‘distance puzzle’ and the ’missing globalization puzzle’. The short run trade elasticity is about 1/4 the long run trade elasticity.

Organizer

Taiji Furusawa

日時

2018年11月20日（火 Tuesday）10:25-12:10

場所

東京大学大学院経済学研究科 学術交流棟 （小島ホール）１階 第１セミナー室
in Seminar Room 1 on the 1st floor of the Economics Research Annex (Kojima Hall) [Map]

This paper studies the effect of foreign direct investment (FDI) on industrial agglomeration. Using the differential effects of FDI deregulation in 2002 in China on different industries, we find that FDI actually affects industrial agglomeration negatively. This result is somewhat counter-intuitive, as the conventional wisdom tends to suggest that FDI attracts domestic firms to cluster for various agglomeration benefits, in particular technology spillovers. To reconcile our empirical findings and the conventional wisdom, we develop a theory of FDI and agglomeration based on two counter-veiling forces. Technology diffusion from FDI attracts domestic firms to cluster, but fiercer competition drives firms away. Which force dominates depends on the scale of the economy. When the economy is sufficiently large, FDI discourages agglomeration. We find various evidence on this competition mechanism.

Organizer

Daiji Kawaguchi

日時

2018年11月20日（火 Tuesday）16:50-18:35

※時間に注意

場所

東京大学大学院経済学研究科 学術交流棟 （小島ホール）１階 第１セミナー室
in Seminar Room 1 on the 1st floor of the Economics Research Annex (Kojima Hall) [Map]

The subjective probability of a decision maker is a numerical representation of a qualitative probability which is a binary relation on events that satisfies certain axioms. We show that a similar relation between numerical measures and qualitative relations on events exists also in Savage’s model. A decision maker in this model is equipped with a unique pair of probability on the state space and cardinal utility on consequences, which represents her preferences on acts. We show that the numerical probability-utility pair is a representation of a family of desirability relations on events that satisfy certain axioms. We first present axioms on a desirability relation defined in the interim stage, that is, after an act has been chosen. These axioms guarantee that the desirability relation is represented by a probability-utility pair by taking for each event conditional expected utility. We characterize the set of representing pairs by measuring the optimism of probabilities on consequences and the content of utility functions. We next present axioms on the way desirability relations are associated ex ante with various acts. These axioms determine the unique probability-utility pair in Savage’s model.

Cash transfer programs may generate significant general equilibrium effects that can detract from the anti-poverty goals of the program. Data from a randomized evaluation of a Philippine cash transfer program targeted to poor households show that a 9 percent increase in village income significantly raised the prices of perishable protein-rich foods while leaving other food prices unaffected. The price changes are largest in areas with the highest program saturation, where the shock to village income is on the order of 15 percent and persists more than 2.5 years after program introduction. Although significantly improving nutrition related outcomes among beneficiary children, the cash transfer worsened those same indicators among non-beneficiary children. The stunting rate of young non-beneficiary children increased by eleven percentage points, with even greater increases in the most saturated areas. Another potentially related spillover arises in local health markets: formal health care utilization by mothers and children also declined among non-beneficiary households. Failing to consider such local general equilibrium effects can over - state the net benefit of targeted cash transfers. In areas where individual targeting of social programs covers the majority of households, offering the program on a universal basis should avoid such negative impacts at little additional cost.

東京大学大学院経済学研究科 学術交流棟 （小島ホール）１階 第１セミナー室
in Seminar Room 1 on the 1st floor of the Economics Research Annex (Kojima Hall) [Map]

報告

長谷川誠 (Makoto Hasegawa) (Kyoto University)

Territorial Tax Reform and Profit Shifting by US and Japanese Multinationals

Abstract

In 2009, Japan began to exempt dividends paid by Japanese-owned foreign affiliates to their parent firms from home-country taxation. This tax reform switched Japan's corporate tax system to a territorial tax system that exempts foreign income from home-country taxation. In this paper, I examine the impact of the territorial tax reform on the profit-shifting behavior of Japanese multinationals. I analyze the sensitivity of the reported profits of Japanese-owned foreign subsidiaries to the tax incentive for profit shifting, measured by host countries' tax rates, and the introduction of the territorial tax system, using US-owned foreign subsidiaries as a comparison group. I find that the profits of US-owned foreign subsidiaries, particularly intangible-intensive or large subsidiaries, are more sensitive to host countries' tax rates than are those of Japanese-owned foreign subsidiaries. I find no evidence that the sensitivity of the pre-tax profits of Japanese multinationals to corporate tax rates increased after 2009 relative to US multinationals. These results imply that Japanese multinationals are less sensitive to the tax incentive for profit shifting than are US multinationals.

東京大学大学院経済学研究科 学術交流棟 （小島ホール）１階 第１セミナー室
in Seminar Room 1 on the 1st floor of the Economics Research Annex (Kojima Hall) [Map]

報告

Suphanit Piyapromdee (University College London)
On Worker and Firm Heterogeneity in Wages and Employment Mobility: Evidence from Danish Data (joint with Rasmus Lentz and Jean-Marc Robin)

Abstract

In this paper, we develop a model of wage dynamics and employment mobility with unrestricted interactions between worker and firm unobserved characteristics in both wages and employment mobility. We adopt the finite mixture approach of Bonhomme et al. (2017). The model is estimated on Danish matched employer-employee data for the period 1985-2013. The estimation includes gender, education, age, tenure and time controls. We find significant sorting on wages and it is stable over the period. Sorting is established early in careers, increasing during the first decade after which it declines steadily. Job-to-job mobility displays a “mean-reverting” pattern that maintains correlations between worker and firm types to a stationary level. Counterfactuals demonstrate that sorting is primarily driven by two channels: First, a “preference” channel whereby higher wage workers are more likely to accept jobs in higher wage firms. Second, a job finding channel where the job destination distribution out of non-employment is stochastically increasing in the wage type of the worker.

A life-cycle model of intergenerational long-term care decisions is developed to analyze how family interactions affect the equilibrium coverage and welfare in the U.S. long-term care insurance market. In the model, consistent with empirical facts, help provided by adult children substitutes formal long-term care services, and parents’ purchase of long-term care insurance discourages children’s informal care provision. The model is structurally estimated using data from the Health and Retirement Study by the conditional choice probability (CCP) estimation method. I find that wealthy parents have a disincentive to purchase insurance as it reduces their children’s strategic incentive to provide informal care. I also find that the failure to account for heterogeneity in informal care options results in adverse selection where the long-term care insurance market attracts a disproportionate number of individuals with worse informal care options and hence higher expected formal care spending. I demonstrate that using family demographics in pricing long-term care insurance contracts reduces adverse selection and improves the average welfare of the elderly.

Centralized school assignment algorithms employ non-lottery tie-breakers like test scores, randomly assigned lottery numbers, or both. The New York City public high school match illustrates the latter, using test scores, grades, and interviews to rank applicants to screened schools, combined with lottery tie-breaking at unscreened schools. We show how to identify causal effects of school attendance in such settings. Our approach generalizes regression discontinuity designs to allow for multiple treatments and multiple running variables, some of which are randomly assigned. Lotteries generate assignment risk at screened as well as unscreened schools. These results are used to assess the predictive value of New York City’s school report cards. Grade A schools improve SAT math scores and increase the likelihood of graduating, though by less than OLS estimates suggest. Grade A attendance also boosts measures of college and career readiness. Estimation strategies that exploit the combination of lottery and non-lottery risk increase precision markedly. Grade A effects are similar when identified by screened and unscreened (lottery) tie-breakers and for screened and lottery schools. Selection bias in OLS estimates is egregious for Grade A screened schools.

When macroeconomic tools fail to respond to wealth inequality optimally, regulators can still seek to mitigate inequality within individual markets. A social planner with distributional preferences might distort allocative efficiency to achieve a more desirable split of surplus, for example, by setting higher prices when sellers are poor – effectively, using the market as a redistributive tool. In this paper, we seek to understand how to design goods markets optimally in the presence of inequality. Using a mechanism design approach, we uncover the constrained Pareto frontier by identifying the optimal trade-off between allocative efficiency and redistribution in a setting where the second welfare theorem fails because of private information and participation constraints. We find that competitive equilibrium allocation is not always optimal. Instead, when there is substantial inequality across sides of the market, the optimal design uses a tax-like mechanism, introducing a wedge between the buyer and seller prices, and redistributing the resulting surplus to the poorer side of the market via lump-sum payments. When there is significant within-side inequality, meanwhile, it may be optimal to impose price controls even though doing so induces rationing.

Organizer

Daiji Kawaguchi

日時

2018年12月25日（火 Tuesday）10:25-12:10

場所

東京大学大学院経済学研究科 学術交流棟 （小島ホール）１階 第１セミナー室
in Seminar Room 1 on the 1st floor of the Economics Research Annex (Kojima Hall) [Map]

報告

渡辺誠 (Makoto Watanabe) (VU University Amsterdam)
Understanding the Role of the Public Employment Agency (joint with Christian Holzner) [paper]

Abstract

The Public Employment Agency (PEA) provides intermediation services in the labor market. We investigate the implications of having such an additional market place using a tractable search model, and explain why only a fraction of firms use the PEA as search channel despite its free service. We highlight the registering firms' tradeo between the negative selection of applicants and the lower wages possible at the PEA. Our theory also explains which job-types are more likely to be registered. We test these theoretical predictions empirically using the German Job Vacancy Survey and the German Socio-Economic Panel and find strong support for them.